This invention relates generally to holders for drinking cups and mugs and more particularly to mug and cup holders arranged to mount on the interior side of a vehicle door.
Cup holders are known which have a generally cylindrical receptacle for holding a cup or mug in an upright position and an inverted U-shaped attachment member for mounting the holder on a vehicle door by insertion of a free end of the U-shaped member between the window glass and interior door structure. Conventionally, the U-shaped attachment member is formed integrally with the receptacle, typically by injection molding the entire holder structure as a single unitary part. The attachment member thus has a fixed shaped and dimensions. Such mug holders are low cost items that must be made and sold in large volumes to do so profitably, and the injection molding tooling is very costly. Hence, the holders are typically made in a single one-size-fits-all model. Typical in this regard is car door mug holder shown in commonly-assigned U.S. design Pat. application Ser. No. 07/530,555, filed May 29, 1990.
The drawback of the prior forms of U-shaped attachment member is that the interior sidewall structure of vehicle doors varies in thickness. The mounting member must be of sufficient width to span this thickness. In typical examples of prior art mug holders, the U-shaped member is fixed to a single width in the range of 13/4 to 2". Such mug holders cannot be mounted on vehicle doors having an interior door structure of more than about 2" in thickness, as is the case in many vehicles. Conversely, a mounting member which would fit vehicles with a maximum thickness of interior door structure, e.g., approaching 3 inches, is wider than necessary for vehicle doors having a thinner interior door structure.
When mounted on vehicle doors of a thickness that matches the width of the U-shaped mounting member, the receptacle and a cup or mug of liquid received in it are supported by the interior surface of the door as well as by the mounting member. When the holder is mounted on a door with a much thinner interior wall structure, however, the receptacle and any cup or mug of liquid placed therein are unsupported by an abutting interior surface of the door structure. They must be supported in a cantilevered fashion by the U-shaped mounting member alone. This leads to a risk that the free-end of the mounting member may disengage from the window, particularly when a full, quart- or liter-sized cup is placed in the receptacle, spilling its contents over the user.
Accordingly, a need remains for a better form of cup and mug holder for mounting on the interior wall structure of a vehicle door.